Today we wrap up our year-long Sales Traits Series with the final installment. This week’s trait is one that provides us insight into a candidate’s soft skills when relating to a prospect or customer.

Sensitivity To Others
The ability to be sensitive and aware of the feelings of others, but not to allow this awareness to interfere with objective decision making.

A salesperson with strength in this trait will respond to the concerns of others even if they do not relate to the situation at hand.

A weakness in this area is indicative of an inability to identify and relate with others on a personal level. Such a person has a difficult time empathizing with the needs and concerns of those with whom they deal.

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We incorporate assessments into our hiring process and we sell assessments directly to companies. As you might guess, we are strong proponents of assessing candidates. Today’s ERE article presents an excellent explanation of what constitutes a “good” assessment.

It is a long article but definitely an interesting read. One topic we often discuss with prospective customers is benchmarking their top salespeople. We don’t do it. We benchmark the sale in that we define the parameters of a typical and ideal sale. This information leads to the job skills needed to succeed in the position.

Dr. Williams provides a clear description of the pitfalls of benchmarking top producers:

How does one define high-producer? By results or by actions that lead to results? It makes a big difference. Individuals in the high-producer group could have used different skills to get there. Some might be good politicians. Some might be very smart. Some might be taking credit for others’ work.

What about the confusion between correlation and causation? Just because ice-cream sales and shark attacks are correlated does not mean that one causes the other. Almost anything can be correlated, but not everything is causal. If you sort through enough garbage, you are likely to find correlations between cookie wrappers and hotdogs. So what? Your goal is to find a correlation between hotdogs and hotdog buns.

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This week we look at a trait that ebbs and flows with salespeople. Typically, candidates have a lower level of role confidence (a driver in their reasoning for finding a new job). Established salespeople who are having success tend to have higher role confidence.

The lack of this trait usually reveals an indecisive, uncertain salesperson. This weakness unfortunately is most often revealed in front of a prospect.

Role Confidence
The ability to develop and maintain an inner strength based on the belief that one will succeed. Role Confidence is a combination of a salesperson’s ability to see their role clearly, positively, practically and functionally. They see themselves as valuable in that role.

A salesperson with strength in this trait will be willing to give their opinions in situations where they do not have a thorough knowledge of all the particulars. They will most likely not be overly stubborn or insistent about their opinions.

A salesperson with weakness in this area will not be very assertive in the majority of professional situations. They may also lack the security in their opinions about what it is that they are doing (or supposed to be doing) so that they become indecisive, unsure of how to proceed.

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This week’s sales management trait sports a word that I don’t particularly enjoy - “monitoring.” That isn’t a great description of this trait since it is far broader than that term. Nonetheless, in today’s world of remote salespeople, this trait will be in even greater demand in the near future.

Monitoring Others
This ability focuses on the actions and decisions of others in a practical, pragmatic way to identify both successes and mistakes. It is the ability to identify the causes of success and failure and to do so in an objective, accurate manner while not allowing personal feelings or biases to influence such decisions.

A sales manager with strength in this capacity will be able to accurately and effectively evaluate the performance of another. This objective evaluation is crucial in accurately leading, developing, and managing the salesperson being monitored.

A weakness in this area can indicate that the person does not place enough importance on systems and order. Therefore, they tend to discount the need to make systematic measurements in order to improve performance. They may allow too much subjectivity into their assessment and will instead tend to see what they €œthink€ the person is capable of as opposed to seeing how they are actually doing.

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Another sales management trait this week.  Have you ever worked for a tyrant?  Someone who had to have it his or her way only?  Did you have to adjust completely to them?

Understanding Motivational Needs
The ability to understand the needs and desires of employees enough that this knowledge may be used to motivate them to succeed. The ability to encourage a self-starting, active pursuit of goals and objectives.

A strength in this area is indicative of a manager who understands that everyone is unique and motivated by different things. They value individual desires and take the time to get to know an individual’s specific motivators.

A manager with a weakness in this trait will tend to discount the importance an individual€™s desires and needs play in managing or motivating that person.

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I had an interesting, quick call this morning with a suspect who was interested in our assessment tools.  His question involved cloning, specifically, why not clone his top salespeople for a benchmark.

We don’t benchmark in our hiring process or assessments.  The presumption is that you can find a clone of your top people.  Bad assumption since people are the ultimate variable.  Beyond that, there are other variables that affect this approach.

1. The Ideal Sale.  We start all assessments by profiling your typical sale along with your ideal sale.  The present-day realities of a typical sale must be defined.  However, we also profile what would be ideal in your sale.  Now, we often get the one-call close, triple profit margin requests, but reality sets in and we determine what is attainable with a strong salesperson in the role.  It is of great importance in hiring salespeople to define your ideals.

2. The Market.  The criteria you used to hire your top performers was based on the information you had at that time.  The market has changed since then, sometimes to the point where  your top salespeople would not be good hires in today’s marketplace.  We have a customer whose top salesperson resides in the top territory in corporate’s backyard.  The salesperson has easy entry into local accounts and he is their number 1 revenue generator.  If we used him as a benchmark for a position halfway across the country where their largest competitor resides, we will skew the data in a direction away from what is needed.  Simply put, markets matter.

3. The Team.  We assess sales teams as a whole and look at the aggregate results.  The strongest teams have a variety of salespeople within them.  The principle is simple; a team consisting of clones has the same strengths and weaknesses.  Though the similar strengths may be beneficial in the short term, a change in market conditions can have an adverse effect.  Also, a cloned team will work best with a specific type of customer but will struggle with others due to a lack of variety in sales skills.  Think of a basketball team made up solely of 7′ centers - they would be good at a limited aspect of the game.

I have to confess, we did complete a sales benchmarking project at a previous employer.  Our results (from a sample size of 40 salespeople) identified 2 common traits amongst the top performers - traits we knew were important to success.  Yet, we were not able to identify any specific threads that ran through the top performers.  Each was different in their skills, aptitudes, motivation and style.

Next time, profile your sale to establish the baseline for your sales assessing.

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This week we focus on a unique trait in that it is usually low amongst jobseekers.  They are confused or unclear about their current role and looking to find clarity in their next role.  This fact is the reason why we stress a strong onramping program for all new sales hires.  A clear program immediately sets the parameters of their new role - something that was most likely missing from their previous position.

Role Awareness
The ability of a salesperson to be aware of their role in the world or within a given environment.  This is the ability to understand the expectations placed on a position and to clearly see how those expectations are to be met.

A salesperson with strength in this trait will understand what they are doing, what is expected of them and how they are suppose to be doing it. Having this understanding will allow them to utilize their other personal strengths and abilities to fulfill the role which they are in.

A weakness in this area indicates a lack of understanding for the role someone occupies.  They are either unclear as to what it is they feel they should be doing or they have not been informed adequately as to what the expectations are of their role or duties.

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Much of the filtering that occurs in sales hiring incorporates the all-too-familiar standards of industry experience and college degrees. The interview follows a step-by-step history of their career much like the old TV show This Is Your Life. The candidates have learned the proper rote responses to most of the questions. It is a dull process that leads to marginal results.

But what about creativity? Creativity often gets overlooked or ignored in sales hiring.

“Creativity belongs in marketing.”

“Salespeople should be money-motivated, driven hunters who complete one-call closes.”

Boring and antiquated. Creativity is the overlooked, undervalued aspect of selling that can be the differentiator between an above-average salesperson and a great salesperson.

Here are just a few areas where creativity can have a substantial impact on successful selling.

Cold Calling
The sales training company I used to work for would teach salespeople how to open a cold call:
“This may not be a fit…”
“This is a cold call so let me know if you want to hang up now…”
Nothing earth-shattering here, but the point was to sound different. I often think in sales the worst thing you can sound like is a salesperson. Think features/benefits.

Rapport-Building
I once had a competitor in the computer networking market who would provide one of those miniature baseball bats with his company info on it. He would tell the prospect that the next time they wanted to destroy the network hardware to call him before beating on the equipment with the bat. Different and memorable.

Solution Selling
This may be where creativity is most valuable in selling. Rarely is there a cut and dry solution offered by a salesperson that fits perfectly into a solution for the prospect. The solution is usually a “best fit” solution which means there is give and take. Creative salespeople can use their aptitude to craft a solution that marginalizes the competition and maximizes their own offering. This ability requires much creativity.

Next time you are looking for a new salesperson, pay attention to the candidates who don’t quite fit into your standard expectations. You may be looking at a creative superstar salesperson. And if you are not sure, contact us and we can assess them for you.

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Sales managers need to focus their team on specific objectives.  This requires the manager to gain commitment from each salesperson…on a regular basis.  It is an important aspect of successful coaching and empowering the employee.

Gaining Commitment
This ability develops and invokes a self-starting attitude in employees in their pursuit of goals. It is the capacity to motivate employees to do their best and to provide them with concrete, practical ideas and methods by which they can achieve their goals.

A sales manager with a strength in this trait will be able to effectively use empathetic ability, communication skills and leadership ability to create a sense of personal motivation to be successful in a given task. This motivation is instilled within the employee; therefore, they are acting on their own drive as opposed to simply responding to outside supervision.

A sales manager with a weakness in this area lacks the ability to effectively inspire another with the internal desire to succeed. They might fail to recognize the importance of such inspiration and rely instead on direct supervision to accomplish goals through employees.

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The resume discussion rages on. Today’s ERE article by Dr. Williams is an excellent discussion about why skills are important in hiring. Resumes cannot clearly display a candidate’s skills so you have to do more digging. Here are a couple of excellent excerpts from the article (emphasis mine):

Once you get past an executive’s glowing resume, dig for details. Most important, try to understand the skills and motivations he or she will bring to the job. Often these will not be evident in the resume, nor will they be evident in the interview. Both usually address results, but “results” are often not the same as skills. Think of results as the score at the end of the game and skills as how the game was played. You need to know skills.

And this one:

Always remember first-line managers are cited as employees’ greatest source of stress. And stress can be a significant reason for turnover. Incoming and first-line management promotion decisions are the easiest to tackle. Simply forget about “promotions as a reward” and focus on “promotions based on job skills.”

As they say, read the whole thing.

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